Sage the Lawyer

They probably didn’t have you as a prosecutor there, unfortunately.

I’m a public defender. Was about to talk about how even though I’m as leftist as they come and find this guy reprehensible, that I’d have had no problems arguing what he argued in court… But I missed that it was charged as “attempted.” That’s an excellent point. I agree that he almost certainly attempted to commit voter fraud.

That said, I can still see how the jury could find a not guilty though, even if, were I on it, I would have said guilty. Attempted crimes still have a mens rea (usually, and I’ll note here that I’m not barred in PA so this is all a best guess, consult a local attorney to know anything for sure). So the state would still have to prove his intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

I’m guessing the jury said they couldn’t prove the intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Your argument convinced me, but, I can see how a jury might go the other way, for sure. Especially since juries are always unpredictable. I’ve won cases I should’ve lost and lost cases I should’ve won, you just never know what’s gonna happen in the jury room.

If you’re at a table with 11 people and a Nazi, you’re at a table with twelve Nazis.

Most people aren’t the extremes, sure. But if they refuse to denounce the extremists, they create space for the extremists viewpoints to survive and gain traction and acceptance on a broader scale.

So, no, even though I know most of my family would be against outright killing me, I also know they support and vote for people who are in favor of killing me. So no, I do not feel safe around them. How do I know if any of them hold extremist viewpoints before it’s too late? If they don’t denounce it, they’re every bit as culpable.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin I have to pay an extra $100/yr for registration because I drive a hybrid.

Why?

Because, I shit you not, driving a hybrid apparently costs the state too much money, because we have to fuel up less, and so they get less tax.

What the fuck.

I’m a big gamer, and was a massive HP fan. I did not buy the game, or even consider it, specifically because of JKR’s bullshit.

I may be in the minority, but I guarantee I’m not the only one in this boat. So now you’ve talked to someone who cares, if you count this as talking.

And just to say a little more, no I didn’t crusade against the game, nor do I villainize people who bought it and enjoyed it. I do think it’s possible to enjoy art without liking the artist. Hell, my favorite book series of all time is the Ender’s Game series, and Orson Scott Card is probably just as bad as JKR, though maybe not quite as famous/public about it.

But I can’t bring myself to buy it. I’m trans, and her rhetoric, and how public it is, has been specifically harmful to me, directly. But that’s just me. I won’t tell other people how to live their lives or enjoy their free time, so long as they’re not actively hurting others. And no, I don’t consider buying a game where one person who is profiting from it might spend a sliver of that profit on anti-trans BS to be actively harming others, especially when she already has enough money to do whatever the hell she wants anyways.

This doesn’t make a dent, and ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible anyways. I just hope that some portion of people who bought the game heard about the protests and maybe donated a fraction of what they paid for the game to some pro-LGBTQ groups. I have to believe there’s at least a handful of people like that. I do believe that people are mostly good, and want to do good.

Yeesh, I wrote a lot more than I planned to here. I’ll stop now lol.

Maybe I was thinking of just birds, since the other one in my head is the European Starling, which is awful for pretty much the same reasons as Sparrows.

Thanks for the extra info!

If this is America, and it was a House Sparrow, bastard had it coming. Awful invasive species, and it’s one of, I believe, two animals birds which is always legal to kill here. Fuck sparrows. I’d swipe right.

Edit thanks to extra info from replies.

"Correctional officers from the jail responded to a medical emergency in one of the cell pods.

There, inmates explained that they believed [Jessica] Barry was experiencing a drug overdose.

Within 3 minutes of being notified of the emergency, officers gave Barry a dose of Narcan.

A total of six doses of Narcan, chest compressions, and an AED were given to Barry, but officers were not able to resuscitate her."

Tragic stuff. I know we all like to blame the cops, and usually I’m 1000% on board, but it sounds like they did everything they could here. At most they could maybe be blamed for not catching and stopping the drugs from getting in. Maybe the ongoing investigation will turn something up as to how that happened, but I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve been that courthouse and jail. It’s not the most well-funded, and addicts tend to find a way. Sad stuff.

That might be a limited (sealed/draft) tournament, where you have to build your deck out of cards you get from packs at the start of the tournament. To this day, those tournaments have 40 card deck minimums and no 4 card limits.

Oh zombie hunt. That was the first deck I ever built on mtgo. And then in my first game trying it some guy ragequit because I wasn’t playing a meta deck but was still winning. Sorry you can’t beat a meme bro, I have no regrets.

Interesting. Hilarious. And annoying. Thanks for the info, that analogy helped a lot. I don’t think TCG players will ever cease to amaze me with some of the shit they pull, I love it.

I guess I don’t really understand Yu-Gi-Oh all that well. I know in Magic there’s a bit of a meme deck based around the card Battle of Wits, which basically says if you have over 200 cards in your library at the start of your turn you win the game. But it was never truly competitive because other decks would run it over before they could find and play one of those 4 cards in their 300 card deck or whatever. The synergies in other decks were just too strong for it to survive long enough. People occasionally got lucky enough to place well in a tourney here and there, but it was never a meta deck in competitive play.

Kinda figured that same problem would exist in Yu-Gi-Oh but yeah, I don’t really know enough to say.

I see what you’re saying about the shuffling, that would be annoying as hell. Do Yu-Gi-Oh rounds not have time limits?

It doesn’t apply to just basic lands, yeah. But any special lands you can only have 4. It’s been a rule for as long as I’ve played (since 2017), but I do know it wasn’t a rule at the start of the game. I think they added it pretty early on though, as a response to people making decks out of just channel and fireball for instant wins.

And, sure, you could keep the ratio of card types the same, but while I don’t play Yu-Gi-Oh, I have to imagine there are some cards better than other cards. So to make a deck that big, you’d have to include cards that just aren’t as good. Playable, sure, but I can’t imagine it finding its best cards consistently enough to be competitive.

According to a quick google, you can only have up to three of the same cards in a Yu-Gi-Oh deck. So you can’t keep the ratios the same.

I don’t play Yu-Gi-Oh, but I play Magic, and it’s similar there, but you can have up to four of any card.

I imagine most trading card games are like this, otherwise you could just make a deck of only the most OP card or something. Not exactly fun to build, or play, or play against.

It was once a crime for black people to sit at the front of a bus in America. Guess that means Rosa Parks is responsible for the Holocaust.

Thank the gods we had you to point it out.

I get the feeling (I wouldn’t really know, haven’t been there in months) that Reddit is still significantly better. Sure, it’s worse now, but it still has active communities on pretty much any topic imaginable. Lemmy is on its way, but won’t be there for a few years I think.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you. I don’t think there’s really a number of years to put on it to make it appropriate. But I’m sure the lawyers discussed all the points you raised in negotiating this sentence. These numbers aren’t pulled out of our asses, there are guidelines (almost certainly, again, not barred in NY) which help ensure similarly situated defendants are sentenced similarly.

What I’d like to hear more about, is whether the judge also ordered some kind of anger management counseling. I think that’s what she needs more than a longer sentence.

If we truly want to balance the goals of protecting the public, adequately punishing the defendant, and also rehabilitating her, I don’t think a few more years either way is what makes the biggest difference. I think it more depends on what she does with that time. I’m not sure what the situation is like within New York prisons as far as counseling goes, but if they have good programs, it’s hard for me to imagine, if she takes it seriously, that 8.5 years of good counseling wouldn’t be helpful to her, and to society at large.

I also think she could make all those gains in counseling, again, if she truly takes it seriously, within a couple of years. But then, I could probably be convinced that 2-3 years isn’t long enough for causing someone’s death. I’ve seen people get that for having the wrong amount of weed on them.

But then we get into the larger discussion about the entire prison industrial complex. We need some kind of change with how our prisons operate. Exactly how that looks isn’t the point here. I’m just trying to point out that there’s a bigger picture in play, and hope that people will consider that in the future.

In the end, nothing we say here has any impact on her life or the issued sentence. But it might have a difference in how people perceive and talk about the system as a whole in the future, so I think it’s important to not lose sight of that.

Defense lawyer here, though not in New York so take this all with a grain of salt, I just felt I should put my 2 cents in based on the vibes in this comment thread.

It is weird for a judge to go against a joint recommendation, which seems to have happened here. It takes something extraordinary. The article indicates that the judge felt she didn’t truly feel remorse for her actions, which could do it, but doesn’t always do it. But, to me, just the fact that the judge went against a joint recommendation will always raise an eyebrow. Usually, if the sentence isn’t harsh enough, the prosecutor won’t agree to it, and if it’s too harsh, the defense won’t agree to it. So joint recommendations are almost always followed.

Yes, it’s “only” 6 more months, but that’s really not insignificant.

Now, to all the people screaming about how it’s not enough (and especially to the one person saying she should have her citizenship revoked (???)), I wonder, how many of you are also against the prison industrial complex we have here in America? I challenge you to think beyond your initial emotions. Is this death tragic? Yes, absolutely it is. It was senseless violence for no good reason. So I agree, it deserves a harsh punishment.

But everyone keeps calling it murder. Not every killing is a murder. I also want to challenge people to watch their language. Murder carries with it an intent to kill. A shove does not intend death, regardless of who is being shoved. No, it shouldn’t have happened, yes, it’s tragic, but it was not a murder.

Now, all of you calling for 20+ years, really think about what you’re saying. Do you think this person has no chance of rehabilitation? Those are the people we put away for life. I don’t think that’s the case here. She fucked up. Obviously. She deserves to be punished harshly, and make no mistake, she is. 8.5 years is a LONG time. Think back to where you were 8.5 years ago. Were you the same person? I doubt it. Now, do you think she might better herself in those 8.5 years? I think it’s very likely, though again, the prison industrial complex makes that less guaranteed.

Sentences have many goals. Some of the primary goals are punishment, protection of the public, and rehabilitation of the defendant. Does this sentence punish her? Yes, a lot. Does this sentence give her a chance for rehabilitation? I’m not sure on that one, but that’s because it may, if anything, be too long, and cause her to get too used to life in prison, and increase her likelihood of recidivism. But that’s not her fault, that’s the fault of the prison industry. Does this sentence protect the public? I say yes. She lost her temper once and it’s now going to cost her 9 years of her life (if you include the duration of the case). That’s a hell of an incentive not to repeat.

Alright, I think that’s all I really want to say. But please, everyone, in the future, try to think about how our prison system really works, and how much you support it, when you’re discussing individual crimes, not just when you’re talking about the system as a whole. I think most people on this site lean left, and therefore should support reducing the prison populations, but this comment section has me worried with everyone here frothing at the mouth to give MORE prison time, when the sentenced amount should be enough to satisfy our sentencing goals.

I got one off etsy, it’s just 3d printed. Works fairly well, but the floss can get a little loose towards the end. But it’s easy enough to fix.

Not quite as convenient as the individual picks, but FAR less waste. A trade off I’m happy to make.

Hi, I’m a lawyer. While I work in a different area of law and therefore can’t speak too in depth about this with certainty, if their terms are as enforceable as the linked articles seem to indicate, then yes, this is good advice.

As always with the law, things may vary by jurisdiction. If you have specific questions, contact a lawyer in your area.

If you’re in the US, you can demand a company release the information they have on you, to you, for inspection. It’s more data than you’d think. A LOT more.